1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electronic component, an electronic-component-embedded substrate, and a method for producing an electronic component.
2. Description of the Related Art
Ceramic electronic components such as ceramic capacitors have been used in mobile communication terminals and many other electronic devices. To meet the recent increasing demand for smaller electronic devices, embedding electronic components in wiring boards and thereby reducing the size of electronic devices has been proposed. The electrical connection between an electric component embedded in a wiring board and the wiring is usually mediated by via-hole electrodes, and the via holes used in making these via-hole electrodes are created by irradiating the wiring board with a laser beam pointed at the external electrodes of the embedded electronic component. This means that the external electrodes of such built-in electronic components must be highly resistant to laser irradiation. As a solution to this, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2012-28456 discloses a ceramic electronic component for use in a wiring board, and the external electrodes of this ceramic electronic component have a Cu-plated surface.
More recently, however, ceramic electronic components with further improved weather resistance, in particular, reliability under hot and humid conditions, are in increasing demand.